Westminster Hall is a medieval great hall which forms part of the Palace of Westminster in London. It was built in 1097 for William II, and at that time was one of the largest halls in Europe. It is particularly notable for its hammerbeam roof, which was commissioned for Richard II in 1393 and built by the royal carpenter, Hugh Herland. At the same time the rest of the hall was remodelled by the master mason Henry Yevele. The hall survived the fire of 1834 and bombing in World War II and, in spite of various restorations, has maintained its medieval structure and many of its features. The hall has served a variety of ceremonial and administrative functions throughout its history. From the twelfth to the nineteenth centuries it was home to the courts of King's Bench, Chancery, and Common Pleas. It was the scene of important state trials, including those of Thomas More, Guy Fawkes and King Charles I. Banquets and royal entertainments were hosted in the hall, with the last coronation banquet being that of George IV in 1821. Since the twentieth century, the hall has been the venue for the lyings in state of state funerals. It is used for special addresses by Parliament to the monarch, and is on rare occasions the venue for joint addresses to the two chambers of Parliament.
Early history
Westminster Hall, which is the oldest surviving building within the Palace of Westminster, was built as a Great Hall for William II. The foundations were laid in 1097 and the building was completed by 1099. At that time it was the largest hall in England, and possibly Europe. During its early history, the main use of the hall was for feasts and banquets. William II held the Whitsun feast in the hall on its completion in 1099. The earliest coronation banquets were those of Prince Henry in 1170 and Richard I of England in 1189. There were banquets when the king's Great Council met, and to mark other important occasions. Henry III provided feasts for poor people in the hall, the only king to have done so. The king's Great Council usually met in a smaller hall when at Westminster, but the Great Hall was the location for a show of strength, as when war was declared against France in 1337. In 1215, Magna Carta stated that common pleas should be heard in a fixed location, which was normally Westminster Hall. The Court of King's Bench and the Court of Common Pleas were established as separate courts, with the former still following the king until the early fifteenth century, when it joined the Court of Common Pleas in Westminster Hall. The hall was also used for state trials: the trial of William Wallace took place there in 1305. By the end of the thirteenth century, merchants were selling their wares from booths and stalls in the hall. In 1385, Richard II commissioned statues of thirteen kings from Edward the Confessor to himself for the hall. Six of them were placed in niches on the south wall and have since remained there. A new roof and renovations were commissioned in 1393. The work was carried out under the supervision of carpenter Hugh Herland and masons Henry Yevele and Walter Walton. The walls of the hall were refaced and a cornice, a string-course with carvings of the king's emblems such as a white hart, corbels, traceried windows and flying buttresses were added. Oak timber for the new hammerbeam roof was cut from royal forests in Hampshire, Surrey and Hertfordshire and brought to Westminster by teams of horses, with the last part of the journey by water. The hammer beams were decorated with twenty-six carved angels. Two towers and a pinnacle were added to the north facade, but the work was incomplete when Richard II was deposed in Westminster Hall in 1398; the work was continued by Henry IV, who was crowned in the hall.
Tudors and Stuarts Royal feasts and celebrations continued to be held in Westminster Hall under the early Tudors. When Catharine of Aragon arrived in England to marry Prince Arthur lavish entertainments, or "disguisings", were staged in the hall, accompanied by jousting in New Palace Yard. The last feast, except for coronation feasts, to be held in the hall was at Christmas 1549. The hall continued to accommodate the Court of King's Bench and the Court of Common Pleas. They were joined by the Court of Chancery when it became a separate court in the fifteenth century. The King's Bench and Chancery sat in opposite corners of the south end of the hall, while the Common Pleas was situated at the north end. State trials held in the Hall included those of Thomas More (1535), John Fisher (1535), Guy Fawkes (1606), the Earl of Strafford (1641), King Charles I (1649), and the Seven Bishops (1688). There were still shops in the hall in the seventeenth century; Samuel Pepys described buying books and items of clothing there in his diary in the 1660s.
18th and 19th centuries
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